Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment. The semiconductor industry continues to improve the integration density of various electronic components (e.g., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.) by continual reductions in minimum feature size, which allows more components to be integrated into a given area. These smaller electronic components also require smaller packages that utilize less area than the packages of the past, in some applications.
During the manufacturing of the semiconductor devices, various processing steps are used to fabricate integrated circuits on a semiconductor wafer. Generally, the processes include a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process for planarization of semiconductor wafers. A challenge of the CMP process is to produce a clean substrate surface following the polishing. Therefore, a concern with the use of a CMP process is the efficient and complete removal of the polishing slurry and other polishing residues and particulates following polishing in order to prevent introduction of defects into the polished product. Ideally, post-CMP cleaning should remove all polishing slurry, polishing residues and particulates in a quick and repeatable fashion without introducing additional defects or damage to the substrate surface.
Although existing methods and devices for cleaning the semiconductor wafer after the CMP process have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all respects. Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a solution for the process control for semiconductor manufacturing operations.